Back in March, I fell down the MGAE Fairiees rabbit hole and I'm still there.
I have a guess at the timeline for these and I'll discuss it as we go.
The dolls themselves are dated 2003 and the boxes are 2004, so figure around that time period.
The first three Fairiees are floral. This is Sunflower with her pet ladybug.
The doll has basic articulation. Her hair is nice, though the smell is long gone. I wonder how vintage dolls like SSC remain scented so long when dolls that aren't nearly that old have lost theirs.
Sunflower has her two-piece outfit with wings sewn on, her ladybug, and a brush. She also comes with a perfume bottle, though the perfume was long dried out. The pets are actually bottles meant to hold the perfume. Their heads pop off. Yep.
The dolls are shown on the bottom of the box, which is unusual.
They are Sunflower with ladybug, Tulip with Butterfly, and Rose with bee.
The interesting thing about this initial trio of Fairiees is that they were released twice. This is another box bottom that shows the same dolls, but with different names.
Sunflower is now Zinnia and her ladybug is named Floret. Tulip is Nigella and her butterfly is Mum. And Rose is now Cynara with her bee, Bud.
Sunflower is easiest to find with that name. I couldn't find any photos of her as Zinnia. Tulip was hard to find boxed photos of for a while, though recently two of her have come up for sale. I've never seen Nigella boxed, not even in Google and Worthpoint image searches.
Rose on the other hand was easier for me to buy as Cynara. The Rose doll is on ebay, but she's quite high-priced. She's still the only one of the three I've seen photos of with both versions of the name.
Here's Rose with her stuff. (I'm sticking with the Rose name.)
Rose and Sunflower.
Here is the only major difference. Rose as Cynara's wings are velcroed onto her dress. Sunflower's are sewn on.
I believe the earlier versions are the flower names, because none of the subsequent dolls have sewn-on wings. They have velcro.
Here they are together again. They really are cute. I've always collected fairies, so I have no idea why I skipped these.
I managed to get a Tulip and she arrived today!
She's my fave of the three.
Same accessories as the others.
Tulip has a different outfit style, so that's neat.
Better photo of her face. My battery was dying so I was taking fewer shots than usual.
Tulip is like Sunflower. Her wings are sewn on.
Here are the three dolls.
And the three pets.
The second series of dolls appears to be winter-themed. Poinsettia is white-haired and wearing a red dress. Her pet Itsa looks like a grasshopper. Then there's my fave, Fridella, who has longer dark blue hair and a white dress. She seems to have a snow theme. Her pet is named Tita and is possibly a beetle? I can't tell from the two pics I've seen of her. There is very likely a third doll in this series.
On the same day I found Tulip on ebay, I also saw this girl. I didn't know this series even existed! I did a lot of Googling when I was first into these in March and I certainly never saw this set.
This is Tazy from the Rainbow Collection and her snail friend is Spotsie.
Here's a photo of the whole series. It says you can collect all three collections and there are nine characters total, which is how I learned there's likely a third winter doll from the previous set.
The Rainbow girls all have longer hair than the earlier ones, except for Fridella, and definitely more complex hairdos. They wear the same outfit as Sunflower and Rose only in different colors.
There's a significant size difference between the boxes.
Tazy has a bunch of little ponytails. I think the main part of her hair was also in a ponytail but the band dried out. I like how it sits in a huge wave, so I brushed it and I'm leaving it like this.
From the side.
Her hair did retain a hint of grape.
Her wings are plastic instead of the previous fabric wings. They velcro on.
I love this snail.
Seriously, love him.
Like the other pets, his head comes off and he's a perfume bottle.
One final pic of Tazy with Spotsie and her brush. Again, the perfume was dried out so I left it in the box.
And those are my Fairiees! I'm on the hunt for the others, so if anyone sees them for sale anywhere and isn't interested, please let me know. I'd also love to see photos of the ones I'm missing, especially the unknown winter fairy and the other two Rainbow ones.
PHOTO CREDIT: Mine for the majority, but the two bottom of the box photos for the floral first series are from image searching. Probably originally ebay auctions.
No comments:
Post a Comment